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It’s so very . . . on-brand for us.
“We’ll talk later,” he says, reading my mind because I have quite a few things I’d like to say to him. His head moves back to my sister.
“Are you blind?”
“Ben!”
“What?” she asks Ben, ignoring me.
“Ben! Stop it.” I’ve never been one for drama. It’s probably why it feels so good to start it with Ben.
“No, sweet girl. This is enough. This letting people walk all over you shit? It’s done.”
“Fine. Why don’t I start with you?” I ask, and if I wasn’t sitting in a hospital bed, I’d have my hands on my hips or I’d be poking him in his big, stupid chest.
“Babe, you’ve never let me walk all over you,” he says, and, okay. That’s kind of true. “Probably the first person, too.” His head moves back to Lilah. “You’re not blind. You’ve got a good family, even this piece of shit.” His head tips to my dad.
“Ben!” Ben ignores me.
“Everyone in your family has spent the last twenty-five years keeping you safe. You might not know why, which, babe, open your fucking eyes, but there’s no way a woman like you didn’t realize it.”
“A woman like me?” she says, Princess Lilah coming out, the perfectly curated, mysterious, and just a bit snippy daughter.
“A woman like you. You let men get away with shit?” She blinks. “You let anyone get away with shit when it comes to you?” Her nose scrunches. “Your dad—has he ever asked you for money?” Her skin goes white.
My eyes move to Dad.
His face has gone white.
“No,” I say under my breath. “Dad, no.”
“I fucking knew it,” Ben says under his own breath. “You said no, though, right? He asked and you said no.” Lilah’s eyes are watering.
“I had no choice, Lol,” my dad says.
“You sure as fuck did!” I say, my voice rising. “From thebeginning,you had a choice.”
“Your mom . . .”
“Mom enabled you because she was fucking riddled by guilt.”
Something in me snaps.
It feels good.
Snapping.
That last thread to Old Lola breaking and the new one coming out in full force. The Lola that’s been sitting in a chrysalis for three years, the one who started to break out when I signed the lease to my bakery.
Dad looks at me, shock covering his face.
He’s never met New Lola. Not really.
Time for him to make her acquaintance.
“Mom loved family. And she loved you, in her own way. But I think she also loved the freedom you gave her.” Dad’s eyes go wide. “I know, Dad. I know it all. She told me all about it all. About the family and why she needed to get married so badly, so quickly. About Lilah.”
“What about me?” Her voice is questioning, but also like she knows. Like she’s waiting for the secret to come into the open so she, too, can metamorphose into something new, what she was always supposed to be.
